Holland Cotter

Happy Friday! Here is a creepy, psychedelic sing-along on the topic of Jell-O. Brought to you by the musician Ariel Pink. [HUH.]

Someone is selling a Rodin on Craigslist. The sales writeup is lifted from from the Met. Buyer beware. [Craigslist via @shaneferro]

Relatedly, if you’re on Twitter follow Shane Ferro. She’s one of the best tweeters around. [Twitter]

Starbucks is being forced onto the side streets of New York because the rent is too high. [Commercial Observer]

Art critics Holland Cotter and Roberta Smith have picked out ten galleries to visit in various boroughs throughout the city. Finding art that’s likable is standard fare for art critics; what’s distinctive about their selections is how they focus on the changing landscape of each neighborhood, nearly as much as the art. Their write-ups capture a specific moment in gallery-time—before they move on, in the next wave of new developments. Cotter on the Upper East Side; Smith on Chelsea. [The New York Times]

After 12 years in office, Susan Henshaw Jones, will retire as director of the Museum of the City of New York. [Museum of the City of New York]

Spanx, and other shapewear, has been linked to a range of medical problems, like gastroesophogeal reflux disease. [Los Angeles Times]

Publicity stunt or “hell yes” moment? Gawker editor Hamilton Nolan writes an article about how his editorial staff met with union organizers. Gawker is thinking about forming a union; they’ve had one meeting about it. Nolan does write that “the organizing effort is still in the early stages” and “[i]t would be easier to have this conversation internally. But Gawker Media is, for better or worse, a company with a rich history of gossip.” [Gawker]

Dog burritos. Corinna prefers the pug that looks like an Ewok. Paul prefers the puppy that is wrapped in an actual tortilla. Paddy wonders what the selection criteria we’re all using, and would agree with Paul if there wasn’t the worry that puppy could accidentally be eaten. Given that that’s the case, Paddy chooses the terrier wrapped in leopard print. [Sad and Useless]

After being cleared of phone-hacking charges, media maverick Rebekah Brooks is making headlines again. It is rumored that she will be rehired by Rupert Murdoch to head up the social-networking news site Storyful. Terrifying. [The Guardian]

What makes a movie bad ass? A thoroughly convincing essay on the subject. [The Weeklings]

Triennial reviews are coming out: AFC’s discussion of individual works includes this zinger from Corinna Kirsch “Panels leaning against pedestals. Where am I? An art fair?”. Over at artnet News, Paddy Johnson discuss the Triennial’s obsession with the figure. Holland Cotter at the New York Times says the show adds up to some of the most distinctive art of the past decade. Hyperallergic’s Thomas Micchelli finds the show lacks excitement, and its focus on technology given its ubiquitous presence “feels dated and even a little clueless.” Also at Hyperallergic, Benjamin Sutton found it too crowded. Art Agenda’s Andrew Stefan Weiner says the show looks like a Tumblr and has mixed feelings on its success. On the one hand there’s curatorial legerdemain. On the other, not all the works live up to artist and curator Ryan Trecartin’s example. ARTnews’s Andrew Russeth thinks the Triennial shows that “new ideas are on the rise,” and over at Christie’s, Brienne Walsh doesn’t think the show’s got enough cohesion. Given the number of cohesive moments identified by other critics, Walsh’s thesis is the most easily challenged of them all. [The Internet]

Paul Chan’s Hugo Boss Prize exhibition gets a nod from Holland Cotter at the Times. The reason why, though, remains a bit convoluted. “Mr. Chan’s work is always surprising and as smart as art gets, which means, among other things, that it’s smart enough not to always give us the art we think we want.” [The New York Times]

Yet another adventure in the life of the rich and famous. Swiss business magnate Yves Bouvier has been charged with fraud and money laundering for allegedly inflating the prices of Picasso, Modigliani, Gauguins; those works were then sold to Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev, who, if it matters to you, owns the Greek island of Skorpios, purchased from the Onassis family. [Luxembourger Wort]

In Bushwick, the Roberta’s Pizza Empire is crumbling. One of the three restaurant’s owners has split off, and is seeking $5.4 million for his stake in the company. [Brooklyn Magazine via New York Post]

Meet Andy Warhol’s family, the Warholas. They’re kickstarting a film called Uncle Andy—with your help! Now, for the low price of $2,500, you too can own a “Rusyn Tradition Decorated Ostrich Egg” painted by Warhol’s niece Madalen. Abby Warhola is apparently well trained in the art of the selfie. [Artforum]

Marina Abramovic is publishing a memoir. If you’re curious why the artist has decided to release a tell-all of her life in the former Yugoslavia, this is indeed about giving people “the courage to do the things they’re afraid to do in their own lives.” [Arts Beat]

Ernst van de Wetering, the Dutch art historian and longtime head of the Netherlands-based Rembrandt Research Project, has re-attributed 70 paintings to Rembrandt. [The Wall Street Journal]

City raccoons are smarter than rural raccoons. The study was done on Toronto raccoons only, though, so who knows whether the same results would be found in, say, New York. [Nautilus]

Thanks to Marina Galperina for the best Vine from last night’s Monopolart tournament at Postmasters. What a hoot! [@mfortki]

Crazy: The L.A. Board of Supervisors has added $54 million to the 84.7 million arts and culture budget. [The Los Angeles Times]

A mysterious metal object has fallen from the sky in New Jersey. [NBC New York]

The collaborative online magazine East of Borneo has just hours to go before their Kickstarter campaign closes. Help ’em out. [Kickstarter via Culture: High and Low]

Matisse, in his later years, was not in good health. Because painting was a challenge, he made work within his physical means. Holland Cotter offers a lot of meaningful background on Matisse in his review of the retrospective at MoMA. [The New York Times]

Your dog for the day: Dogs don’t make good snow angels! [@huskyheaven]

Here’s the main thing to know about Christie’s auction from last night: MOST MONEY SPENT ON ART IN ONE NIGHT. We’re at $744.9 million andcreeping towards one billion. That’s the headline you’ll read all over the art paper, but thankfully, Kelly Crow adds in more than that. For instance, Joan Mitchell became the highest grossing female artist at an auction; an untitled work from 1960 sold for $11.9 million. [Wall Street Journal]

The Onion publishes a pro-abortion commentary that’s not that funny. It reads like a serious pro-abortion piece. [The Onion]

Holland Cotter works pretty hard to find the positive in the 9/11 Museum. The museum opens today. [The New York Times]

United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron is sending surveillance aircraft and other officials to help track down the schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram. That’s better than a hashtag! [The Guardian]

Hedge fund managers manipulate the art market. This WSJ article does a reasonable job of informing readers on who the key players are, but doesn’t release the kind of juicy issues former art market journalist Sarah Thornton was known for reporting. Read the WSJ article and then Art Market Monitor for analysis. [Art Market Monitor]

Vik Muniz, Chuck Close, Sarah Sze and Jean Shin have been commissioned by the MTA to beautify the 2nd Ave subway. No Vik Muniz rendering has been released but we’re unhappy with him regardless since he’s been making bad work since forever. We’re also unsure that Chuck Close was the right man for this commission. Who wants to look at a giant anonymous baby head during their commute? [In the Air]

The reviews for the Guggenheim’s Carrie Mae Weems show (opening today) have begun to roll in. Holland Cotter is upset the show wasn’t larger, and half heartedly gives curators Kathryn E. Delmez at the Frist Center and Jennifer Blessing and Susan Thompson at the Guggenheim a pat on the back for doing a good job working within the restrictions. [The New York Times]

Claudia LaRocco on the weeklong experience of APAP: Mild. I very much appreciated the observation that the pop song is still an ironic or at least knowing structural device in dance. [ArtForum]

The Kiev Biennial will take place for a second time. Really? This is not a city of great stability at the moment. The launch of any exhibition of that size there will be daunting task for curators and artists. [The Art Newspaper]

Happy MLK Day, readers! We’re bringing you the best of the web this morning, but expect a lighter posting schedule due to the holiday.

Holland Cotter rails against an art world he sees affected at every level by money. Art, galleries, media are all identified as suffering.

Conservative art can encourage conservative criticism. We’re seeing a revival — some would say a disinterment — of a describe-the-strokes style of writing popular in the formalist 1950s and again in the 1970s: basically, glorified advertising copy. Evaluative approaches that developed in the 1980s and 1990s, based on the assumption that art inevitably comments on the social and political realities that produce it, tend to be met with disparagement now, in part because they’re often couched in academic jargon, which has become yet another form of sales-speak.

The antidote, at least to some of the problems he lays out, are outlets like Art F City and Hyperallergic. [The New York Times]

With the Sochi Winter Olympics soon approaching (and with an estimated $50 billion price tag) Malcolm Harris investigates how cities can end up taking on so much financial and political risk. The answers are fairly simple: guns and insurance. [Al Jazeera America]

Uproar over Jezebel’s search and publishing of untouched Lena Dunham photos finally makes the New York Times. Dunham doesn’t see how “photoshop or no” why featuring a woman whose body doesn’t look like coatrack wouldn’t be a good thing. [The New York Times]

The Guardian instigates a curious poll asking whether Damien Hirst will be remembered in 50 years. Ah, Britain, where everyone has an opinion on art. [Comment Is Free]

Courtney Love is in court for “twibel,” a combination of Twitter and libel (and possibly the most annoying new word of the year so far). This is the first time a libel case involving Twitter has been presented before a jury. [On the Media]

Making the rounds on Facebook: a Tumblr about all the mirrors sold on Craigslist. [Craigslist Mirrors]

Matthew Barney’s latest film River of Fundament will premiere in February at BAM. Tickets are already on sale. [BAM]

The European Crystal Chandelier Store (Image courtesy of Bowery Boogie)

Woot! W.A.G.E. (Working Artists for the Greater Economy) is throwing a symposium to brainstorm and write policy for getting artists paid by non-profits. [W.A.G.E.]

Departing Mayor Michael Bloomberg will take his administration’s policies on the road with a new global consulting corporation; he’s recruited more than a dozen aides from the current administration, including Kate Levin, the Department of Cultural Affairs commissioner to advise other cities on how to be like New York [The New York Times]

Squirrels: Why are they here in our parks, staring at us, seeing right into our hardened city hearts? Escaped pets. [Gizmodo]

The Boston Globe comes out with its five-month-long report on the Boston Marathon bombings. What results is an engrossing peek into the lives of the Tsarnev brothers, though I say that with reservation; the piece frames the family’s problems as some epic tragedy, with the pressure-cooker bomb being like Chekov’s loaded gun that finally, inevitably goes off. Then there’s a problematic series of sentimental watercolor portraits based on photographs from the suspects’ lives. [Boston Globe]

Asher Penn: Curator, artist, Sex-publisher, and now entrepreneur! Available Works is the latest website for selling art over the Interwebs; artists, galleries, and “sellers of all kinds” can sell art online, and there’s a social media function to it, too. Sounds like some mix of Saatchi, ArtStack, and even eBay. [Available Works]

Real estate prices have not peaked, though the climb has officially reached the Lighting District. The Crystal Chandelier store has closed, and the landlord is now charging $18,000/month for the storefront space. What’s next? The Bowery Boogie thinks nightlife. [Bowery Boogie]

It looks like Holland Cotter got around this year. His year-end roundup spans Shanghai, Venice, Philadelphia, and New York. Detroit gets a mention, with some actual advice: “If it proves that the worst seems about to happen, the art world should get itself out to Detroit en masse and put its communal spirit to good use: Form a human circle around the building and, in one voice, just say no.” We’ll take that suggestion literally. [New York Times]

Here’s another human circle opportunity, and it’s happening in just a few hours! A group of scholars include Pulitzer Prize winner Edmund Morris, and music critic and arts editor Annalyn Swan, filed a second lawsuit against the New York Public Library to prevent it from ripping out the stacks and replacing them with Internet access. Edmund Morris’s affidavit makes an especially good casefor why this is a threat to our intellectual future (he’s a historical writer, and has researched a large portion of his books there). “[I]f the current administration goes ahead with its announced intent to replace the solid stacks with the vacuousness of public space, we will sadly a depository with a greater sense of historical responsibility.” Go to cheer him on today at noon at the 42nd street library, or tomorrow at 11 AM at 60 Centre Street, Room 341. [Save NYPL, via @savenypl]

Benjamin Sutton caught Alexandre Singh’s, “The Humans” at BAM last night and reports very mixed results. As Sutton tells it, it’s a re-imagining of Paradise Lost that starts off funny and full of action, and descends into over written drawn out courtroom drama. I had high hopes for this show—Singh is known for his fantastic strange semi-historical performances—so it’s a bit of a bummer to read this. [In the Air]

Is the art market a boom or bust? Me, Felix Salmon, Thomas Galbraith, and John Seed discuss. [Huffpo Live]

Ad Reinhart is best known for his black paintings, but he was also a cartoonist. Who knew? [ArtNews]

Wow. The Studio Museum gets a glowing review from Holland Cotter for “The Shadows Took Shape”, a group show that explores Afrofuturism. [The New York Times]

Is it humanly possible for one mayor to do more damage to his credibility than Toronto Mayor Rob Ford? After a video tape was released of Ford smoking crack, allegations that drunkenly told a staff member he wanted to eat her pussy were released. In response to those allegations he told the press, “I’m happily married and I’ve got more than enough to eat at home.” Then, he attended a city council meeting wearing a football jersey that had “MAYOR” written on the back. This morning The Star has a long reported piece about Ford’s alcohol abuse problem. Apparently junior staffers bought Ford a bottle of vodka approximately 10 times per month and were routinely tasked with taking care of Ford’s personal errands. Through all this, somehow he’s still the mayor. [The Star]

Raymond Pettibon and Marcel Dzama get interviewed and talk about urine paintings because it’s VICE. [VICE]

The Moving Image Fair granted its second annual Art Award to artists Rollin Leonard and Jessica Faiss; their works will be acquired by the 53 Art Museum in Guangzhou, China. Congratulations! [In The Air]

Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte (PSL) gets it from the New York Post. They claim it’s more ubiquitous than James Franco. [The New York Post]

What happened to 3rd Ward. According to this report, Next Street, a merchant bank, held the company hostage after it failed to come up with promised funds for the expansion project. Something about this part of the story seems fishy to us. Since when are banks unable to come up with the funds for their investments? [The Observer]

Gene McHugh profiles artist Nate Hill as though he were a fictional character. Pretty brilliant. [Rhizome]

Best headline and subheader of the day: Brooklyn Man Giving Away Life-Size Hamster Wheel to Make Room for Some Friends. UPDATE: It was a hoax. [Time]

Cody Foster & Company, ornament wholesale manufacturer to the world, might be ripping off the designs of craft artists. A Flickr has popped up documenting the company’s copycat designs. [Jezebel, Consumerist]

Jesus. Holland Cotter sure likes the Mike Kelley exhibition at PS1. “Plainly put, the Mike Kelley retrospective, fresh from Europe to MoMA PS1, knocks everything else in New York this fall right out of the ring.” [The New York Times]

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz has greenlighted construction for up to 10, 30-story-tall condominiums along Greenpoint’s waterfront. Current residents are especially not happy that Greenpoint’s turning into New Williamsburg. [The Brooklyn Paper]

What looks like a great model for community funding has been going on in Detroit for the last three years. SOUP, a public program in Detroit that serves $5 dollar dinners, asks four people to give presentations on how they would better the city. At the end of the night, attendees vote on which presentation should get a grant. A recap of one such evening. [Michigan Daily]

Michael Kimmelman observes that community centers served us well during Hurricane Sandy, and thinks we should use some of the federal emergency money to build libraries. We’re not sure they’re used quite as much as community centers, but we’re happy with any proposal that keeps New York’s libraries in the public eye. [The New York Times]

We’re thinking about making Gravity a required viewing for all AFC staff and recommend readers join us. This movie looks great. A.O. Scott has the review. [The New York Times]

“Abstract Expressionism is overrated,” begins Holland Cotter, in his review of Robert Motherwell’s early collage show at the Guggenheim. Um, no. Motherwell is overrated. Spend an hour in the Albright Knox, and you’ll remember why people care about Abstract Expressionism. Viewing the best of this movement is truly moving. Anyway, he explains that while much of Motherwell’s work was repetitive and predictable, these collages are not. -PJ [The New York Times]

And the reviews of the New Museum’s Chris Burden show begin. Roberta Smith loves it. [The New York Times]

The Alice Austen House opens a show of Melissa Cacciola’s tintype portraits this Sunday, titled “War and Peace.” Situated in a Victorian Gothic cottage on Staten Island called “Clear Comfort,” the museum was home to one of America’s earliest woman photographers. Deputy photo editor of TIME Magazine Paul Moakley is curator in residence, and the museum features sweeping views of lower Manhattan. Try and think of a better way to spend Sunday afternoon. [Alice Austen House]

Restoration Hardware, a shop that sells everything from salvaged-wood tables to funky drawer pulls is unveiling RH Contemporary Art, “a platform that includes an interactive Web site, which will blend e-commerce and editorial; a print journal; a series of short documentaries; a residency program; and, yes, a Manhattan gallery.” These are the guys that brought you The Rain Room, so set your expectations low. -PJ [T Magazine]